What I Learned About Changing the World From Parashat Vaera

The first parsha of Shemot ends on a down note. Moses has done exactly what God asked of him, and yet everything seems to have turned out wrong. Rather than listening to Moses and letting Israel go free, the Pharaoh has only been irritated enough to inflict further hardships on them. Meanwhile, the people Moses was sent to save now look on him as the source of their problems rather than the solution. Moses’ feelings about his mission at this stage can best be summed up by the anguished cry he calls out to God – “Oh Lord, why did you bring harm on this people? Why did you send me?”

The despair felt by both Moses and the Israelites at this point is not difficult to understand, inexperienced as they all are with the task they have been called to undertake, which is nothing less than working to bring an end to their own oppression and subjugation. Caught up in the idealism of his mission and still not used to thinking of himself as a leader (or even an Israelite for that matter), there are still a few lessons Moses has to learn before he can lead his people out of slavery and into freedom. It is precisely in this parsha (Parashat Vaera) in which God begins to see to it that he learns them.

Lesson 1: Everything is a process. Everything.

Moses and the Israelites are discouraged at the beginning of the parsha because they all at some level expected the experience of liberation to be simple, easily attained and above all quick. When carrying out God’s first set of instructions did not immediately lead to an improvement of their situation but, to the contrary, seemed to worsen them, Moses and crew reacted with justified surprise. After all, with God on their side, how can they possibly fail? What they fail to understand is that even for God (maybe especially for God) everything is a process. It took seven days for God to create the world, and it’s going to take some time to bring the Israelites out of Egypt. We might ask, if God knew beforehand that in the end it would take the death of the firstborn to get Pharaoh to finally capitulate, why then not try that first and have done with it? It may be, however, that without all the other plagues, the threats and back-and-forth between Moses and Pharaoh, this final plague would not have had the same impact and might not have succeeded at all. All the previous efforts Moses, Aaron go through, apparently futile on the surface, actually prepare the ground for the final victory.

Lesson 2: To make change happen, you first have to believe change is possible.

At this low point, when Moses is feeling so lost and dejected, God prefaces the next set of instructions by recounting all the signs and promises made to the patriarchs Abraham, Isaac and Jacob – that the Israelites would be redeemed from exile and would come at last to inherit the land promised to their ancestors. Not only this, however: In this speech God emphasizes that even Abraham, Isaac and Jacob, who merited to receive such promises, knew God only as El Shaddai, not by the four-letter name that most closely and intimately connects God with the people Israel. In this way, God seems to be saying: As close as I was to your ancestors, I never revealed My own special name to them, and yet I sheltered and cared for them in times of trouble. How then can I fail to take care of you, who have been permitted to be so much closer to Me?

Lesson 3: When things are looking bad, it’s important to remember who you are and where you came from.

Even after being reminded of God’s promises, Moses still doesn’t feel confident in the eventual success of his mission. The source of this lack of confidence seems to come primarily from a breakdown of trust between the people and its leader. The Torah clearly tells us that the Israelites’ reason for not listening to Moses at this point is because of their circumstances – the harshness of their labor and the constriction of their spirit – nevertheless Moses himself can’t help but attribute his failure to the inadequacy of his leadership skills, regretting once more his deficiency of speech.

It is no coincidence that the Torah chooses this moment to recount in part the genealogy that led up to the birth of Aaron and Moses. This is to establish beyond a shadow of a doubt the close connection between the two brothers, and between Moses and the Israelites. In this way God seems to be saying: Though you were raised in different households and under very different circumstances, still you are brothers and nothing can break that bond. Just the same, though the Israelites may have lost their confidence in you for the moment, you are bound together by ties that cannot be broken. Now get up and get to work!

These are only a few of the lessons Moses needs to learn as we watch him develop! over the course of the next several parshiyot from an insecure outsider suffering from lack of confidence and a very really difficulty connecting with the people he’s supposed to save, into a strong and capable leader able to face down Pharaoh, discontented Israelites and even God in order to protect the people from harm and bring them through the wilderness. May we all learn from them as well as we work to find solutions to the difficulties facing our own communities and in our own days.